Georgina Theodora Wood, Chief Justice
Ghana’s first female Chief Justice, Mrs Georgina Theodora Wood, has disclosed she will retire on 8 June, 2017.
Mrs Wood made the revelation when she witnessed her last Justice for All Programme at the Nsawam Medium Security Prison on Friday, 5 May.
Expressing her gratitude to handlers of the programme for inviting her, Mrs Wood said: “It gives me an opportunity to say an official farewell to the Justice for All Programme given that in about four weeks I’ll be retiring. Specifically on the 8th of June I will no longer be in service.
“I should state this because I read all sorts of things. Some even think I’m staying up until the end of the year; that’s not accurate. In four weeks three days, I would have served my country faithfully in public office for about 47 years and I have been involved with prisoners that long because I started as a police officer and a legal person who prosecuted in the Circuit Court and so on before I joined the bench as has remained as such. So thank you very much for bringing me here.”
Mrs Wood worked with the Ghana Police Service as a Deputy Superintendent and public prosecutor for three years before joining the Judicial Service as a District Magistrate in 1974.
She rose through the Circuit and High courts to become a judge of the Appeal Court in 1991. She was appointed to the Supreme Court by President John Kufuor on 12 November 2002, an appointment she had earlier declined.
She was nominated for the position of Chief Justice in May 2007 and on 1 June 2007 Parliament approved her nomination by consensus, making her the first woman to head the Judiciary.
Since taking office, Mrs Wood has sworn in three Presidents - the late President John Evans Atta Mills in January 2009, then Vice President John Dramani Mahama upon the death of President Mills on 24 July 2012 and President-elect John Dramani Mahama on 7 January, 2013. She last swore into office on 7th January 2017 Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.
